Cisco Small Business SRW2048 10/100/1000Mbps Switch

Pros: Great switch with plenty of ports to accommodate even the largest networks. Work well in tandem and have great throughput.

Cons: We have 3 of them in our business and each and every one of them has failed in the same way. They start with severe network broadcast storming, failure to route data, failure to work after hard resets and firmware updates.

Pros: Good price, abundance of ports, can rackmount it, four SFP ports to trunk it with other switches, managed, web interface.

Cons: The web interface is slow, yes. For all of the people complaining about slow reboot times - turn off spanning tree. I turned off spanning tree and the switch reboots relatively quickly.

Other Thoughts: If you're buying business-level equipment, you should know how to read the manual and configure the equipment... all of these people complaining about slow reboots apparently didn't take the time to READ and realize it's slow because STP is on by default.

Pros: The obvious pro is the price.

Cons: I have had the same issues as the others, where the web server is very unreliable, slow as all get out.
I have 3 of these switches all on the latest firmware. 1 switch failed to update via the web and I had to update through console cable which took over 30 minutes....
Rebooting these things takes ages!
I had my switches on for 385 days straight and on about day 375 they all went ballistic. I had packet loss all over the place, storming, random disconnects and it became increasingly worse, luckily power cycling them seemed to have solved the issue.
While the price is right, the annoyances are certainly abundant...

Pros: It is an inexpensive switch with an easy to navigate web interface.

Cons: Poor design, worse implementation. I've had these switches in service for more than a year. The first thing you notice is that these switches take forever to boot. They take a good 5 minutes to come fully online. The web interface is flaky and sometimes the switch fails to serve the webpage at all until the switch is rebooted. I had one switch which required 5 different people to look at it just to be able to get in via the console cable and this was with Linksys support on the phone. Linksys actually gave me an RMA # for that switch but I later found out that the number was invalid. Linksys did not return an email requesting a valid number. RAM's can only be processed online. If they don't return the email that means it is basically impossible to RMA and item. AVOID LINKSYS LIKE THE PLAUGE!

Other Thoughts: The switch also does wierd things like lose settings and boot with dead ports. This switch while appearing to be a good value is NOT. I replaced with the DLINK DGS-3048. This switch boots instantanously and doesn't have any of the above problems.

Pros: It's definitely one of the cheapest 48 port managed switches out there.

Cons: The latest firmware only works with Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. Vista, Mac, and Linux users should look elsewhere. VLAN support is very flakey / unreliable.

Pros: I have these set up in pairs with Spanning Tree+LACP LAG trunking (for doubling speed between switches and redundancy). Configuration at the port level for speed, duplex, flow control, back pressure, MDI/MDIX, Storm Control is a plus. The backplane speed on this is 96GBps, as all ports can run at the same time, full speed, full duplex, non-blocking. I bought these in lieu of $40,000 of Cisco redundant switch equipment. Is the Cisco better? Sure, but not by much. Reliability of packet delivery has been 100% for me.

Cons: The web interface is a little cumbersome, and the newer firmwares are buggy (stick with 1.0.0.50, newer ones may eventually be better). One problem with the newer firmware then 1.0.0.50 is the ADMIN password doesn't save, and you can log in with any password.

Other Thoughts: I own 8 of these units. One of them did ship with 50% dead ports. Linksys replaced it immediately. Also, you CAN change the password if you don't know it. While booting up the switch with the serial cable, you can get into a "maintenance" menu that allows resetting the password.

Pros: Cheap.

Cons: Newest firmware is much worse than previous versions. No longer supports config by web browser, now must use a proprietary, Windows-only app. Can't config vlans or trunk groups via ssh or telnet. Can't turn off telnet. Very confusing vlan configuration. Config screens don't let you see all ports at one, you must scroll through multiple screens to get to them all. Clunky and slow.

Other Thoughts: If you have firmware 1.0.0.50 or older, don't upgrade it!

Pros: Low price for what it does.

Everything tested good on turn on. Only thing I haven't tested is the serial port and I don't have one available to use for testing.

Cons: None yet.

Other Thoughts: Don't let my review discount the first two, however my gamble paid off without incident. There is a chance that NewEgg.com had a bad lot and now has a good lot; however there is a chance that I just got lucky from a bad lot.

Over all, if you get a working one it's a great switch for the price. Recommend testing all ports possible when you buy it.

Pros: Numerous Ports, VLAN capability, 4 miniGBIC slots

Cons: 1st switch was defective, complicated return process, no password reset

Other Thoughts: Just like the previous reviewer, the product was sent defective. There must be a bad batch of these switches that NewEgg bought. I spent 3 weeks trying to get a replacement.

Overall, once you get a working switch, it works great. I use Cisco SFPs and they work fine in this switch. I should have bought the Netgear..it would have probably saved me time.

Pros: Cheap. NewEgg shipped the original and the replacement very fast. No fault to NewEgg. I can't blame them for anything. Service is great.

Cons: Poor design. Shipped with 50% dead ports. Replacement has an admin password that is not the default. Linksys states that it must be replaced to reset the password. They say that there is NO reset procedure, which doesn't make sense to me since all of my cheap Linksys and expensive Cisco equipment can be reset. I expected more from both brands. This is a serious disappointment.

Other Thoughts: I'll have to remember that "nobody ever gets fired for buying Cisco" does NOT apply to Linksys products as well. This product has damaged my reputation with my clients as well as eliminated Linksys as a potential solution in any of my future projects.